Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Tillie Klimek made her confession and was arrested on Oct.
28, 1922. [“Poison In Husband's Food,” The Nebraska State Journal (Lincoln,
Ne.), Oct. 28, 1922Page 2]

***

FULL
TEXT (Article 1 of 5): Chicago —Dragged back to life from the very edge
of the grave, Joseph Klimek may prove the nemesis that will send his
wife, Tillie to the gallows—and, with her, her cousin, Mrs. Nellie
Sturmer Koulik.

Klimek
is expected to be the state’s star witness in the trial here February
27 of the two women, charged by police as being the “Bluebeard”
poisoners of twenty persons. Both are held under indictments of first
degree murder.

The
aged man who may turn their nemesis is Mrs. Klimek’s fourth husband.
Mrs. Koulik has had two husbands and is mother of thirteen children.

Assistant
State’s Attorney “W. F. MacLaughlin says the trial jury will be asked
to impose death penalties, which, if granted, will break an established
precedent—for no woman ever has been executed in Illinois.

In a local hospital, Klimek is slowly recovering use of his legs.

~ “Crippled by Arsenic” ~

Physicians say he was, paralyzed by the secret “introduction of arsenic into his food over a prolonged period.”

As days pass he nurses his hatred against the woman who he says plotted his life and vows he will make her pay.

“She made me get more insurance,” he mutters. “I did not suspect, though the soup and things did taste queer. Then I got sick.”

Detectives, dipping deep into the sinister pool swirling past the heads of the two women,have exhumed the bodies of twelve whose deaths are laid at the door of the indicted pair.

In each body coroner’s chemists say they found enough arsenic to kill a dozen.

~ What State Charges ~

Attorney McLaughlin promises trial testimony will show —

That while one of Mrs. Klimek’s husbands lay dying, Mrs. Klimek often remarked she believed he would not live long.

That a few days before the husband did die, Mrs. Klimek secured a coffin for “a bargain” for $30.

That after his death she played dance music on a phonograph in the room whore the body lay.

Tracing Mrs. Klimek’s nuptial ventures, it has been found that in January, 1914,Joseph
Mitkiewicz, the woman’s first husband, died. Within a few weeks after
Mitkiewic’s death, Mrs. Klimek married John Huszkakski. In May he died.

Within a few months also came the end of John Guszkowski, a sweetheart.

Mrs.
Koulik, the other woman, is specifically held on charge of having
poisoned her husband, John Sturmer. Arsenic was found in his stomach,
chemists say.

H»was
Mrs. Koulik, police say, who gave the poison to Sirs. Klimek n« an easy
way to make money “at poison parties” where death was always the
invited guest.

In
a whirligig of vehement syllables, now in English, now in Polish, now
beseeching, again, profanely vindictive, both women deny their guilt.

“They are going to the rope,” the prosecution says.

“I’ll help send them there.” The “spared” fourth husband of Mrs. Kllmek says.

“We’re going to be freed,” the women say.

But a jury is yet to have the final word.

~ ~ ~ Alleged Poison Plot Victims ~ ~ ~

Here
is a list of victims of the alleged poison plot involving Mrs. Tillie
Klimek and her cousin, Mrs. Nellie Stunner Koulik. It will be offered as
evidence.

PHOTO
CAPTION (Article 2 of 5): So startling have become the "poison dinner murders,"
alleged to involve Mrs. Tillie Klimek and Mrs. Nellie Sturmer Koulik,
now-estimated at twelve, that Assistant State's Attorney William McLaughlin, of
Chicago, has been directed to devote his entire time to the case. The so-called
Chicago murder trust was composed of women, who carefully worked out diabolical
murders with arsenic. Mrs. Klimek has declared Mrs. Koulik supplied her with
poison. [Standalone]

EXCERPT (Article 3 of 5): The story came from Mrs. Stella Grantkoski, a
friend of the accused woman. “When her husband was sick she worked all the time
in a tailor shop,” said Mrs. Grantkowski. “Mrs. Klimek did not show any grief
at all. She used to joke about her husband’s sickness, and, after he was
buried, she told how she grabbed him by the ears as he lay in his coffin and
said to him ‘You old devil, you’ll never get up again to bother me.’”

[“’Female Bluebeard’ Pulls Husband’s Ears As He Rests In
Coffin – ‘You will Never Get Up To Bother Me Again,’ She Said.” The Baltimore
American (Md.), Nov. 17, 1922, p. 1]

***

FULL
TEXT (Article 4 of 5): Chicago. Oct. 28. – His body slowly burning up from poison. Joseph Klimek
traced the sensation of death creeping on him for physicians today. The wife of
the dying man was arrested, and according to the authorities, has admitted
that she administered “white poison” to him.

With
Klimek’s charges that an attempt has been made to slay him for his insurance,
the authorities ordered the bodies of two former husbands of Mrs. Klimek
exhumed. Both are said to have died under mysterious circumstances, after their
lives had been heavily insured.

~ “I’m
Burning Up,” He says. ~

“I seem
to be burning up.” Klimek tried feebly throughout the day at the hospital where
he is under elimination.

“I
have always been a healthy man and only recently passed a rigid insurance test.

“Suddenly
I found I could no longer smoke. Tobacco made me sick. Then I noticed that the
soup and coffee tasted ‘funny.’”

Mrs.
Klimek, shortly after their marriage, the husband declared, demanded that he
take out more insurance for her protection.

His
stepson, Joseph Mitkewics, is employed in an engraving plant. Tests of food
found in the Klimek house were being made today to determine alleged presence
of arsenic. Klimek’s stepson is also being held. Mrs. Klimek denied the
statements that she had been married six times.

‘‘Let
them dig up the bodies of my two former husbands,” she cried. “They’ll find
that one of them died of pneumonia and the other of a throat infection.”

~ Two
Dogs Also Dead. ~

Confronted
with her husband’s charges that his two dogs died after eating scraps from the
table, Mrs. Klimek said: “I know what killed them. They just fell over.”

“If
my husband has been poisoned, it’s moonshine.”

Klimek
from his hospital cot denied that he drank moonshine. A search of the Klimek
home revealed a package, said to be arsenic, and labelled “rat poison,” five
hypodermic needles, which Mrs. Klimek said belonged to Miss Ida Enright, a
nurse who had

formerly
lived with them. Mrs. Klimek’s second husband, Frank Kupicak, died less than a
year ago. Her first husband. father of the man arrested with Mrs. Klimek, la
said.

EXCERPT (Article 5 of 5): Gbrurek
[Tillie Gbrurek Klimek] located most of her unfortunate mates througha marriage broker. She was first married in
1885, to John Mitkiewitz, who survived until 1914. In that year, Gbrurek
claimed to be the recipient of spiritual visions that predicted the deaths of
those around her. these visions would not only foretell the passing of the
unfortunate individual, but also the date of his or her demise. The spiritual;
messages were particularly potent and accurate when it came to foretelling the
passing of the unfortunate individual, but also the date of his or her demise.
The spiritual messages were particularly potent and accurate when it came to
foretelling the demise of Gburek’s husbands.

In 1914, Gbrurek proclaimed that
John Mitkiewicz would die in a matter of weeks. To everyone’s amazement,
Gbrurek’s husband inexplicably died at the appointment time, providing his
widow with a life insurance settlement in the process. Once again using a
marriage broker, Gbrurek married her second husband, John Ruskowski. Within a
few months of the marriage, Gbrurek predicted the death of her new husband, and
once again, the message from the spirits was infallible. As in the case of
Mitkiewicz, Ruskowski had also purchased life insurance and named his new wife
as the beneficiary. Within months of his death, Gbrurek married Joseph
Guszkowski. As before, this marriage was a short one and ended just as Gbrurek
had predicted – including her receipt of another life insurance settlement.

Almost immediately after
Guszowski’s death, Gbrurek married her fourth husband, Frank Kupczyk. This
marriage lasted four years before Gbrurek made the dreaded prediction of his
death, less than two weeks before the event was to take place. By this time,
Gbrurek’s reputation had become widespread in the local area, particularly
because she had earlier predicted the death of one of her neighbors. Thus, her
reputation as a seer became unquestioned when the death of Frank Kupczyk
occurred on schedule.

Suspicions about Gbrurek’s powers
became rampant after she married Anton Klimek, her fifth husband, and quickly
predicted his demise. Law enforcement authorities decided to investigate this
last prediction and the number of mysterious deaths that had befallen Gbrurek’s
unfortunate husbands. Not completely to their amazement, their investigation
found Klimek had been fed arsenic with the meals that his devoted wife had
prepared for him. The Black Widow was immediately arrested and later charged
with murder after the exhumation of the remains of her earlier victims.

Gbrurek’s prosecutors were able to
assemble a strong case against the murderer and bring her to trial in late in
1921. A jury quickly convicted Gbrurek, and she was sentenced to life in prison
without the possibility of parole.

“The next meal I cook is going to be for you – you have
caused all my trouble.”

That was the significant remark made by Mrs. Tillie Klimek,
on trial on charges of poisoning her third husband, to Police Lieutenant
Willard Malone when he arrested the woman on a charge of murder, the officer
testified today.

FULL TEXT: Mrs. Tillie Klimek, who with her cousin, Mrs.
Nellie Stermer Koulik, is suspected of having caused the deaths of a dozen or
more persons by poison, are named in two more alleged poison cases yesterday.
The latest victims, Mrs. Rose Splitt and Miss Stella Grantkoski, told Asisstant
State’s Attorney William F. McLaughlin how they became deathly ill after eating
candy given them by the women.

At the same time Dr. William J. Hickson, head of the
psychopathic laboratory, and his wife began an examination of the mental
condition of Mrs. Klimek and Mrs. Koulik under instructions from from Municipal
Judge Joseph Schulman. The only explanation given by the judge, before whom the
women are scheduled to appear next week, was that “he had his own theory of the
case and wanted to test it out.”

~ More Light on Deaths. ~

Miss Grantkoski, with her sister, Lucy, were called to the
state’s attorney’s office to testify in connection with the death of their
brother, Joseph Guszkowski, a former sweetheart of Mrs. Klimek, who died under
mysterious circumstances in 1914. The fact that she herself had been poisoned
was a surprise to Mrs. Mr. McLaughlin.

The girl stated that her brother had told her a short time
before his death that Mrs. Klimek had confessed to him that she had poisoned
her first two husbands. About this time Stella, who was acquainted with Mrs.
Klimek, quarrelled with her and then ate some candy Mrs. Klimek gave her. she
said that the candy made her very sick, but she recovered.

Mrs. Splitt told Prosecutor McLaughlin that she thought she
had been poisoned by candy given her by Mrs. Klimek when they lived in the same
building at 833 North Marshfield avenue. Mr. Klimek had seen her talking to Mr.
Klimek, and Mrs. Splitt believes that she gave her poisoned candy while
jealous.